BANFF – Banff National Park is entering the summer without a dedicated fire information officer at the same time the federal government is warning Canadians to brace for another potentially unprecedented and catastrophic wildfire season.
Parks Canada declined an interview request, but the Rocky Mountain Outlook has confirmed a five-year fire information officer contract position came to an end in March when funding ran dry. A brief statement was provided, but failed to address where capacity to fill in this staffing void would come from.
“During a wildfire incident, a fire information officer is always assigned to manage public communications,” according to the email from Parks Canada.
“Parks Canada continues to have the capacity to respond to wildfire incidents and share the information with visitors and the communities in Banff National Park.”
A fire information officer is considered a critical link between Parks Canada and the public, the media, and other jurisdictions and organizations to communicate and provide timely information – both during wildfires and prescribed burn operations.
Alan Westhaver, a retired manager of Parks Canada’s fire program working at the national, regional and park level for almost three decades, said a fire information officer is a critical component to the functioning of the Incident Command System during fire emergencies.
“These are situations when timely and effective information to the public is particularly important for health, safety, and operational reasons,” said Westhaver, a fire behaviour specialist who spent much of his career in Jasper and is now a fire investigation consultant.
“Keeping that information flowing pro-actively, and residents and visitors ‘in the know’ about the current status of planned or accidental fires is likely to be basic in maintaining public confidence and support.”
Aside from that, Westhaver said fire information officers have a strong knowledge and background in fire management.
Without that, he said, it would not have been possible to educate and raise awareness with the public about the essential roles that wildland fire plays in maintaining Rocky Mountain ecosystems, biodiversity and wildlife.
Creating that appreciation was responsible for allowing park managers to gain the public’s understanding and support necessary for re-introducing fire and conducting prescribed burns, he said.
“I credit them for much of the success our fire management program had in past decades,” said Westhaver.
Parks Canada may mitigate the gap created by their staffing problem by sharing fire information officers from other parks or the Calgary office, Westhaver said, but having a coordinated network of these skilled staff has now become standard practice at the provincial level, especially in Alberta and B.C.
“Like other key personnel in wildland fire management and incident command, they are mobile during emergency situations to provide support wherever help is needed,” he said.
Banff’s last fire information officer worked on prescribed fires, wildfires, wildfire risk reduction projects and more.
An all-hazards information officer, she was also deployed with her incident management team across Canada, including to Wood Buffalo in 2023, the 2022 Chatamon fire in Jasper and Lytton in 2021.
Westhaver can’t overestimate the importance of the position.
“Being a civilian resident of B.C. now, but still involved in wildland-urban fire work, I see that serious problems arise when sound and accurate communications fail, or when misinformation via social media prevails,” he said.
Ironically, the end of the fire information officer contract in Banff National Park comes as the federal government released its forecast and early modelling of weather trends for 2024, with the metrics indicating that Canada may be facing another catastrophic fire season like last year.
Last year, the wildfire season across Canada was the all-time worst on record, burning more than 18 million hectares, which is two-and-a-half times the previous record set in 1995 and more than six times the average over the past 10 years.
In Alberta alone, the devastating wildlife season saw an unprecedented 2.2 million hectares burned between March 1 and Oct. 31. The province’s five-year average before 2023 was 226,000 hectares of burned land.
The 2024 fire season in Alberta is already off to a blazing start, with 51 current active wildfires, including carryover fires. So far this year, 123 fires have been extinguished in Alberta, including a small one near Exshaw and another east of Mînî Thnî (Morley).
Alberta Wildfire last week issued a fire advisory across the Calgary Forest Area, which includes Kananaskis Country and the Bow Valley outside Banff National Park. Earlier in April, a fire advisory was issued for Banff National Park.
Climate change is causing extreme temperatures at a greater frequency than in the past, increasing the severity of heat waves and contributing to dry conditions, and wildfires, as well as heavy precipitation risks.
In releasing the information on the early modelling and forecasts on April 10, Steven Guilbeault, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister, whose portfolio includes Parks Canada, said extreme weather events are becoming far too familiar as the impacts of climate change hit communities.
“After the staggering wildfire season of 2023, we are once again facing the potential for another active wildfire season this year,” he said in the April 10 press release.
“It is a stark reminder that we need to work together to reduce the risks from our changing climate to keep Canadian communities safe.”
The Parks Canada fire management program has a wide variety of positions across the agency, including fire information officers, and according to Parks Canada’s website, each position is “unique and plays an important role.”
In addition to the critical work during fire emergencies, fire information officers do outreach work throughout the winter and educate and inform the public on prescribed fire operations in the lead-up and during the events.
Parks Canada has several prescribed fires on the books this year, including finishing off Compound Meadows near the Banff townsite, a large-scale operation between Banff’s east gate and Johnson Lake on the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway and a couple in the remote backcountry.
Several recommendations were made following the out-of-control prescribed fire at Compound Meadows last May, which burned three sheds at the horse corrals and led to the evacuation of Banff Rocky Mountain Resort, including a call to review public information plans to ensure inclusion of crisis communication protocols and processes, including clarity around any changes in emergency processes/approvals.
“Evaluate the plans for inclusion of strategies to provide real-time management of social media and identify processes for escalation of media or online inquiries for rapid resolution and to prevent the spread of misinformation,” states the after-action review, which Parks Canada said would be implemented fully.
The Town of Banff is aware that the current contract for the fire information officer for Banff National Park was coming to an end but believes communications on emergency planning have never been better between the Banff National Park public information officers and the municipality.
“We were assured that there would be no interruption in service from this role and that’s what we have experienced,” said Jason Darrah, director of communications for the Town of Banff.
“I have had planning meetings, ICS training and even mock tabletops involving Parks Canada, Town of Banff and utilities and other agencies – as recently as last week and again next week.”
Darrah said he has direct access to a team of permanent staff dedicated to communications now responsible for coverage of emergencies.
“Our director of emergency management has an enhanced regular contact with both field units in Banff National Park,” he said.
Meanwhile, an Environment and Climate Change Canada announcement on April 14 indicated that 2023-24 winter was the warmest in Canada since record-keeping began.
Temperatures were above normal from coast-to-coast-to-coast during meteorological winter, which runs from December 1 through the end of February, with only a small portion of western Yukon Territory experiencing below normal temperatures during the period.
Moving into the fire season, Environment and Climate Change Canada says the latest seasonal weather outlook indicates that higher-than-normal temperatures are expected to continue for the spring and summer, boosted by El Nino weather conditions.
This sets the stage for the possibility of another active wildfire season and other incidents of extreme weather.
The warmer than normal winter temperatures and drier than usual conditions may result in some regions – in particular western Canada, eastern Ontario, and southern Quebec – experiencing early, above normal, fire activity this April and May, according to the department.
The 2023-24 El Niño, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada, has peaked as one of the five strongest on record.
“It is now gradually weakening but it will continue to impact the global climate in the coming months, fuelling the heat trapped by greenhouse gases from human activities,” states the department.
